


True Disaster

by amutemockingjay



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eliza is a cinnamon roll, F/M, M/M, Unrequited Love, this was supposed to turn out fluffy and it turned into angst instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 11:58:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8488534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amutemockingjay/pseuds/amutemockingjay
Summary: He was her best friend. And that was all he ever would be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I did a word count challenge with some friends just for the hell of it. I wrote this in an hour, and it literally came out of nowhere. I was somewhat inspired by Take a Break ("there's a lake I know...") hence why this AU takes place at a lake. Bonus points if someone catches the In the Heights reference.

Keep playing my heartstrings faster and faster/you can be just what I want, my true disaster—Tove Lo, True Disaster

* * *

 

Eliza was never one to stay in the spotlight. That’s why it was such a surprise that she was best friends with Alexander Hamilton to begin with. Sitting on the dock, her feet dangling in the crystalline waters, she was waiting, as she always was, for him. She felt like she could almost never keep up with him, but she had never minded before. That wasn’t her place; Angelica was his intellectual match. If she was being perfectly honest with herself she wasn’t even sure why Alexander Hamilton had picked her out to begin with.

She glanced down at her watch. He wasn’t usually late like this. He was prompt almost to a fault; running on pure adrenaline and caffeine. She was the calming presence, the good natured one, the sweet one. And yet…

She wanted so much more. She wanted to have the bravery, the boldness, the way he navigated through life with nonstop energy. If she could tell him how she really felt. If she could get up the courage to press her lips against his. If she could find the words in her heart that had been there from the moment she met him. She replayed the moment in her mind over and over again, exactly how he would whisper those fateful words in her ear. How her skin burned every time he touched her. How she had always considered herself so strong but fell to pieces when he held her. And yet. They were just friends. It wasn’t his fault. Alexander was dynamic, easily affectionate, oblivious in his own way. Half the girls in school (not to mention the boys) were half in love with him. Eliza would just be one more, albeit one who knew him better than most. Why he confided in her, she did not know.

“Eliza!” She heard his voice and turned around, her heart skipping when he spoke, when her name seemed to come to life in his clipped syllables.

“Hey,” she said softly.

He flopped ungracefully next to her, rolling up his pants leg to stick his feet in the water next to her. He nodded towards a plastic bag sitting on the dock next to them.

“I brought sustenance.”

“Excellent.”

“Odwalla, and funyons, and cookie dough.”

“Alexander, that’s not sustenance, that’s junk.”

He grinned. “Is there a difference?”

“You’re going to kill yourself if you keep eating that way.”

He reached for the bag of funyons and ripped it open. “Want one?”

She wrinkled her pert nose. “That’s all you, Alexander.”

He shoved the chips into his mouth. “Your loss.”

She cringed a little. “You’re disgusting.”

“Thank you very much. So, you said you wanted to talk?” He swigged down some of the Odwalla and handed the other bottle to her.

She cracked open the bottle. Her hands were sweating. Could she do this? She took a drink of the thick juice to give herself something to do.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I did.”

He reached for her hand, and she shivered at the touch. “What’s on your mind, my Eliza?”

“I…” she looked at him. “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

He began to stroke her hand with his thumb. “Are you sure? I have some news, too, you know.”

“Maybe you should tell me first,” she suggested. Anything to keep her feelings from spilling everywhere.

“Well, I saw Laurens before I dropped by here.”

Eliza perked up a bit. She loved Laurens, though she hadn’t seen him much this summer, at least not as often as she would have liked.

She glanced at Alexander, looking without realizing that she was looking, the way she always did. The way she yearned for him. She leaned in a little. If he could read her thoughts, would he lean in, the way she dreamed he would?

“He asked me out.”

Eliza’s heart slammed back into her chest. Pain. Ridiculous, she told herself. She had no claims to Alexander. He could date whoever he wanted. And Laurens wasn’t a bad choice, not by a long shot. Much better than Thomas Jefferson.

“What did you say?” She asked, trying to keep the pain out of her voice.

“Yes.” Alexander wasn’t shy the way she was, the way she would have looked down and turned bright red and stumbled over her words.

 She doubted Alexander would have stumbled over anything in his life. Thin-skinned as he may have been, he had reinvented himself into so much more since living with the Washingtons, since being friends with the Schuyler sisters.

Eliza had the strange feeling of stepping outside of her body, of watching herself and Alexander sitting together, hip to hip, his hand still clinging to hers. She tipped her head back as she watched the Eliza on the dock, the water lapping at her ankles.

“That’s great,” she heard the Eliza on the dock say. Her voice sounded hollow, even to her. She saw Alexander turn, gazing into her brown eyes.

“You okay?” He asked softly.

“Fine,” she said curtly. “Just fine.”

“You don’t seem fine,” he said.

“Pass me the cookie dough.”

“Eliza?”

“Alexander.” She reached behind him for the cookie dough and tore off a hunk, chewing slowly. The sweetness was altogether too much.

“I was thinking maybe you could come with?” He looked at her with so much hope in his eyes. She felt her heart soar for the briefest of moments—maybe this wasn’t what she thought it was. Maybe, just maybe, he felt something too.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah!” He perked up. “You know, like a double date. You remember Mulligan?”

“How could I forget?” Hercules Mulligan was one of Laurens’ dearest friends; she had met him on several occasions.

“Well, I thought maybe you could go with Mulligan, and I’d go with Laurens. Maybe hit the club, catch the fireworks out here on the lake.”

Could she find the words to describe the agony that pierced her? That she would be so close to Alexander, dancing with him, drinking with him, but knowing that his heart would never, ever belong to her?

“Sounds great,” she said, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible.

He leaned up against her, his head on her shoulder. Instantly, her body thrummed with desire.

“I love you, Eliza,” he said, dangling his feet in the water. “You’re the most supportive person I know.”

She wanted to turn her head and cry. She wanted to shake him by the shoulders and make him realize what was right in front of him. But she knew she couldn’t. He wanted Laurens, he would always wanted Laurens and that was all that could be said.

It would be enough, to be next to him, to be his best friend, the keeper of his secrets, the one he came to at 3 am with no place to go. Good, kind Eliza, always ready to lend a helping hand. Good, kind Eliza who was too pure to ever speak about how she felt. Good, kind Eliza that would suffer in silence.

“I love you, too, Alexander,” she said, her voice hollow as they watched the sun set over the lake. As he talked of Laurens, his cheeks flushing, his hands as animated as his words. She stayed there, by his side, as she always would.

That night, as she trudged back to the house in her bare feet, ankles lapping in mud, she knew that this was all she could ask for. He would never love her in the way she desired.

It could never be enough.


End file.
